A Million Views and Counting for Grad’s Blockbuster Bollywood Cover

A month before earning his bachelor’s degree in December, Viraj Bahri B.M. ’21 was setting the stage to leave a lasting impression. During his final semester, the music production and engineering major recorded a cover of the Bollywood megahit "Raataan Lambiyan.” The song’s music video, directed by Bahri and co-released on Berklee and Sony Music India’s YouTube channels, has racked up a combined 1.7 million-plus views since its premiere last month.

Recorded at Berklee’s state-of-the-art production facilities, the song features 40 current student musicians from around the world, including a string quintet and an eight-piece Indian choir. The video, filmed on and around Berklee’s campus, shows the creative process behind the project and features Bahri’s mentor, Berklee faculty member Enrique Gonzalez Müller, in an acting role. 

“It took an entire month to arrange and capture some of the most magical performances that we see in this video,” said Bahri. “Once Sony saw our final music video, they were absolutely blown away and wanted to do an official release as well as promote it on all their platforms.”

Composed by Tanishk Bagchi, "Raataan Lambiyan” is one of two chart-topping singles from the 2021 Indian Hindi-language war film Shershaah. The film’s soundtrack is the fastest Indian album to exceed one billion audio streams worldwide.

Now based in Los Angeles, Bahri is a singer-songwriter and producer who draws inspiration both from Indian classical and contemporary Western styles. His next project is a collaboration with producer and composer Sunny M.R. and the Indian playback singer Antara Mitra.

Watch Viraj Bahri’s video for “Raataan Lambiyan”: